Old Heating Idea Heats Up

JULIE V. IOVINE / New York Times
4jan01

Meg Henson
for The New York Times

IF it wasn't bad enough that the fashions and
haircuts of the 1970's are back, now we have loose-cannon gas and oil prices.

During the 70's energy crisis, the environmental
movement offered unwieldy solar panels stuck on the sides of houses, radiant
rocks in the basement and monstrous metal windmills grinding in the breeze.

Geothermal heat pumps — using earth's constant
temperatures to heat and cool air pumped through buildings — didn't get the
attention that flashier energy choices did. But while solar panels and windmills
for the home dropped from favor as fast as Dr. Scholl's sandals, more efficient
and economical geothermal systems have steadily gained ground among homeowners
and even the environmentally indifferent.

"It's a brilliant strategy," said William
McDonough, an architect known for his environmental work. "Imagine your
building with roots. It's as local as you can get. And all sustainability, like
politics, is local."

Converts include President-elect George W. Bush,
who installed a geothermal heat pump on his Texas ranch during the election
campaign. Howard Newton, a consultant on the job, overheard him explaining to
Vice President-elect Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell that geothermal heat is
"environmentally hip."

In 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency
proclaimed geothermal heat pumps — also known as ground-source heat pumps —
to be the most energy-efficient, environmentally clean and cost-effective
heating and air-conditioning systems available. Sara Quinn, a spokeswoman for
the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium, a nonprofit trade organization, says that
more than half a million geothermal systems have been installed in the United
States, half of them in homes. The annual growth rate since 1994, Ms. Quinn
said, has been 20 percent.

In 1995, Dr. Jeffrey Palmer of East Hampton, Conn.,
invested $26,000 in a geothermal pump for his 3,500- square-foot home, partly
because of his daughter's allergies. His heating bills now average $800 a year,
in contrast to about $1,500 for his neighbors. His air-conditioning bill never
exceeds $74 in summer. Of his low bills, Dr. Palmer said: "I used to brag
to all my neighbors. Now that oil prices are going up, I don't want to make them
really mad."

For all its promise, geothermal is still unsung and
generally unfamiliar to homeowners, especially in Manhattan. Part of the reason
is, of course, cost.

In Manhattan, Adam Yarinsky of Aro architects, a
firm interested in putting new technologies and experimental materials in the
home, said: "I bring it up on every project, and everyone laughs at me. I
know it's there theoretically, if only there were some way to take advantage of
it."

This is one trend in which the suburbs are leading
the cities.

In fact, the most common residential geothermal
pumps lend themselves best to homes with plenty of yard for digging wells.
Geoexchange technology uses basic plumbing equipment and traditional
air-conditioning ducts combined with ground loops buried horizontally or
vertically to exploit the constant 55-degree temperatures found in soil and
water below the frost line, four to six feet down. A simple electric compressor
circulates refrigerant the way a freezer or window air-conditioner does, then
cools or heats the air to be distributed through the house. The same ducts used
by the air-conditioner in summer distribute hot air in winter.

That means no oil deliveries, no boilers, no noisy
outdoor condensers and no pollution. Andrew Collins, a consulting engineer and
advocate of geothermal systems for the home, said that geothermal "started
with the Army needing to house a lot of folks used to having heat and air-
conditioning." He added, "It went in fast and had only one appliance
to maintain."

The expensive part is drilling to put in ground
loops. The loops are filled with water or water mixed with a nontoxic
antifreeze. The longer the loop, the more heat it can gather from the earth.

People think Manhattan is inhospitable to
geothermal energy because it is built on bedrock. But granite is excellent for
transferring heat. The gravel and sand of Brooklyn and Queens are even better.

Without bedrock, wells are typically drilled about
250 feet into the ground, and three are needed to accommodate the 1,500 feet of
pipe used by the average 2,500-square- foot home. It costs about $2,500 to drill
a single well. Cost efficiency dwindles with increasing size. Carl D. Orio, the
president of the Water and Energy Systems Corporation in Atkinson, N.H., and a
consultant on geothermal installations since 1974, worked on a
35,000-square-foot home in Sands Point, N.Y., which needed eight wells, five of
them just to supply heat and air-conditioning for the master bedroom.

SMALL surprise that geothermal energy is perceived
as only for the rich. Installation for a suburban house can cost $3,000 to
$5,000 more than conventional heating and cooling systems in new homes, which
generally cost less than $20,000. The geothermal payback can take at least three
years. Some utility companies provide grants or rebates to encourage homeowners
to go geothermal.

Sy Soobitsky, a teacher in Higganum, Conn., took
advantage of a Northeast Utilities program, which offered him $6,000 to offset
his $22,000 installation bill. "We're more than happy," he said.
"I was a believer all along, but I never thought it would be possible
financially."

Mr. Soobitsky said that his bills for heat and
air-conditioning average about $180 a month. In the summer, there is a bonus.
The circulating water absorbs the house's heat and can, in turn, heat his water
supply free.

On a frigid morning last week, Mr. Soobitsky said
he was thankful for an electric heater, which turns on automatically when
temperatures remain below freezing. Geothermal heat tends to be frustratingly
even, and complaints focus on its inability to make a room toasty warm.

Others find the dry air unappealing and have
installed radiant heat floors (still powered by geothermal energy). And the
ducts tend to be placed where they are best for air- conditioning, not heat: up
high. "I object to using the same air ducts," Mr. Collins, the
consulting engineer, said. "Coupling it with radiant floors is a marriage
made in heaven."

In Manhattan, wells are driven straight through
bedrock, sometimes as deep as 1,500 feet, to reach the constant temperatures of
groundwater. The first high-profile installation was in 1997 at the East 64th
Street town house of Theodore W. Kheel, the labor negotiator and philanthropist,
who wanted to showcase advanced environmental design. The project proved
overambitious, and Mr. Kheel abandoned it after two 1,500-foot wells were
drilled at a cost of $100,000. Tommy Mottola, the chairman of Sony Music
Entertainment, was the next resident, and three weeks ago, said Mr. Orio of
Water and Energy Systems, who was the consultant on the job, the geothermal
pumps were activated for the first time.

A handful of other homes in New York are about to
go geothermal. Last week, a geothermal well was struck for a brownstone on West
86th Street. And drilling will begin next week at new town houses on Reade
Street (see article, page 7 of this section). John L. Petrarca, the developer of
that project, plans to convert a loft building on Laight Street to geothermal.
And in Battery Park City, a 26-story "green" apartment building will
be partly geothermal.

The technology does not lend itself to high-rises
(it would have taken as many as 300 wells to supply the entire green building in
Battery Park City), and finding room to drill presents a special challenge in
crowded cities. Since it is hard to maneuver a drilling derrick behind a town
house, the sidewalks are the way in. Recent drillings have been made easier
because the homeowners, having inherited old coal cellars, also had rights to
the sidewalk.

And then there are subway tunnels. But "we
certainly don't want to go near them," Mr. Orio said, adding,
"Luckily, we have all the maps."

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